Category Archives: Childhood and children

“A boy tells a girl: Oh Muni, you may have forgotten the days when we played together under the banyan tree. Playfully we cooked dust as if it were rice and tree-leaves as if they were curry. How we used to catch fish together in the muddy water and pull out lotus-roots from the water to eat. Maybe you no longer remember? The girl tells the boy: Remembering our bygone days makes my heart burn, the smile of my child lightens my heart.” – Synopsis by Boro Baski for “Dhuri Daka (Rice made of Dust)”, a song composed and performed by staff and students of the Rolf Schoembs Vidyashram (Non-formal Santal school, Ghosaldanga village, Dist.-Birbhum, West Bengal), included in the Santali video album “Ale Ato” (Our Village)
https://youtu.be/OU15PO8TFnA
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?page_id=25317

“The smart boy or clever girl who is deprived of the opportunity of schooling, or who goes to a school with dismal facilities (not to mention the high incidence of absentee teachers), not only loses the opportunities he or she could have had, but also adds to the massive waste of talent that is a characteristic of the life of our country.” – Nobel Awardee Amartya Sen in The Argumentative Indian (Penguin Books, 2005), p. 344
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Argumentative_Indian
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?page_id=25728

“[Tribal] children are preferred for particular works due to the benefit of vigorous toil for low wages. […] Income generation at a very young age reduces the scope for development of other individual resources.” – Ameya MR in “A Case Study of ‘Kanavu’ in the Evolutionary Perspective of Approaches to Education” (MA thesis, Mahatma Gandhi University 2015), p. 57
https://www.academia.edu/21289981
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=1847

“Tribal children have higher levels of undernutrition compared to children of socially economically advanced sections.” – Programme report on Tribal nutrition: “UNICEF’s efforts to support the tribal population, especially children who suffer from malnourishment”
https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/tribal-nutrition
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=11674

“Women have profound traditional and contemporary knowledge about the natural world around them and hence there’s a necessity to make policies mindful of the connection between environment and gender. [T]hat’s why it’s largely in the hands of women to sensitise our children towards the ecological heritage. Big changes always begin with small steps and the right place is always the home.” – Writer-activist Mari Marcel Thekaekara (The Hindu, 27 January 2017)
https://www.indiantribalheritage.org/?p=22373

“[N]ew pedagogic practices require to be evolved in order to execute various developmental programmes. In doing so, good practices that exist in the society may turn out to be very handy. In case of tribal societies, for example, there are two striking aspects with regard to caring for the child and nurturing the young. One is the prevalence of breast feeding and the other is the tradition of kin/community care of the children. It is the kin care that explains as to why it is rare to find destitution and begging among tribal population, including tribal children. Equally important in this respect is the emphasis on ethics of work, which the children internalise quite early in life. Things have however begun to change because of displacement due to development projects and lack of rehabilitation and resettlement of displaced population.” – From “The Status of Tribal Children in India: A historical perspective, 2011” (Opportunities, Working Paper No. 7, Institute for Human Development, United Nations Children’s Fund, India)
http://www.ihdindia.org/pdf/virginius_xaxa.pdf